


Family

by lilyconrad



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Possibly reformed Darth Maul, Sith Obi-Wan, Star Wars AU, naboo went differently
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-08 12:09:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8844394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilyconrad/pseuds/lilyconrad
Summary: Seven years after the duel on Naboo, Obi-Wan Kenobi has turned to the dark, Maul has turned to the light, and young Anakin is caught somewhere in-between. Can Qui-Gon rescue his Padawan before it's too late?





	

**Author's Note:**

> A gift for the Jedifest Exchange on Tumblr (I'm [writegowrite](http://writegowrite.tumblr.com) there). I ended up incorporating three of my recipient's wants: Sith Obi-Wan, a captured-by-the-Jedi Maul, and alive Shmi Skywalker. It was fun to fit in as many wants as I could... hope you like it!

In the High Council chamber of the Jedi Temple, an airy room of windows set high in the sky and usually flooded with light, there was only the darkness of lowered screens and the blue glow of an enlarged holo playing in the center of the room.

The ghostly shine showed a circle of concerned faces as the holo played for the third time, the Masters ringed around the room in their seats and two more men standing off to the side. Some frowned, some looked away, and others leaned forward as if this was the time they would finally understand how something like this could happen.

In the ring of light, a lithe figure danced and spun, jumped and whirled, and clone troopers fell before him, cut down or apart by the dazzling line of his lightsaber. The grainy shadows of the holo did nothing to minimize the grace, the pure power on display, as the man worked through the entire squad that had been sent to catch him in a methodical and brutal fashion. There was a dark beauty to it, if one pretended it was simply a drama and not security footage from a hangar bay on an Outer Rim world.

Another saber-wielder darted into view, attempting to catch the man off-guard, but it was not meant to be. Several Council members who had been watching averted their eyes as three limbs were removed in a violent twist of the man’s blade before he stabbed his attacker cleanly through the chest.

One of the two standing men watching the holo, incredibly tall for a human, lowered his gaze to the floor as well. The other, hooded and silent, remained motionless.

Panting with exertion, a crooked smile on his bearded face, the blue ghost looked straight up into the holo cam and gave a jaunty salute as he spun his blade and brought it up to point toward the distant lens before bowing and jogging away out of frame.

“Knight Jakan is the second Jedi he has killed,” Mace Windu said quietly to the tall man as the screens rolled back up and the daylight and blue skies of Coruscant returned to the Council Room. “We have secretly sent two squads and two Jedi to capture him, or at the least rescue Skywalker, and this has been the result both times.”

“Wanted to spare you this sight, we did,” the diminutive leader of the Council added. “But stubborn you are.” Grandmaster Yoda sighed and looked at the man in front of him and the hooded form next to him with reluctance on his face. “Having seen this, Qui-Gon, still wish to pursue him, you do?”

“Yes, Masters,” he answered, stepping forward to bow with a stony, unreadable expression. “Anakin is barely sixteen and incredibly impressionable. He must be saved before he is twisted to the dark side, and… Obi-Wan was my Padawan learner before I took on Anakin. I still see him as my responsibility.”

“Not your fault this is, Qui-Gon. Turned to the dark by himself, Obi-Wan did.”

“Not entirely by himself,” another Master, Eeth Koth, added as he glared in stony disapproval at the man standing silently by Qui-Gon.

“It was a poor decision by all of us to entrust the study of a captured Sith Lord to Kenobi,” Windu said firmly around the room, leaving no invitation for debate. “We all should have seen what was happening over the years. Not just Qui-Gon.”

“Why have you brought him from his cell?” Plo Koon asked, the low bass of his voice cool with disdain as he studied the prisoner.

“He’s reformed,” Master Mundi said dryly. “Haven’t you heard?”

Qui-Gon cleared his throat above the distrustful mutters that rose around them as Yoda banged his gimer stick on the tiled floor for order. Only when they were settled back into uneasy silence did he wave it in Qui-Gon’s direction and nod for him to proceed.

“The problem, Masters, is that we keep sending Jedi to capture a… a Sith.” Qui-Gon’s voice faltered for just a moment at saying the word in connection to his former Padawan, but he took a deep breath and drew himself up to his full, commanding height, committing totally to his decision despite all of his doubts and fears. 

He trusted the moment. He trusted the Living Force, and would do his best to trust what it told him to do in the face of what had happened. “We need someone who knows the Sith to capture a Sith.”

As one, the room of Masters turned from Qui-Gon to the prisoner dressed in drab, hooded grey. They took in the heavy binders around his wrists, the red and black lines of his skin, and as he looked up and around the faint glow of his yellow eyes was unmistakable.

He bowed low, his words equally as humble. “I am at your service, Masters, if you will have me.”

 

* * *

 

In the shadows of twilight stretched long by the setting sun of the Akitan system, Obi-Wan Kenobi gave a lazy chuckle and shook his head as he took a sip of a brandy so exquisite it burned as sweet and pure as a kiss. “No, no, little brother. Not that way.” He brought up his free hand and gestured slightly to the right.

Across a wide patio strung with lanterns and vines, a smaller extension of the grand house behind it, a young man balancing atop a low wall slowly put a foot down and Obi-Wan’s gentle, invisible nudge through the Force saw to it that his boot landed on the firm brick of the top of the wall, not the open air and three-thousand-foot drop that waited beyond it.

“I can balance,” Anakin Skywalker protested to the lush green valley below made purple and orange by dusk, turning back toward Obi-Wan with the careful, thoughtful precision of someone who had had far too much to drink. Placing one foot forward and then another, he started walking back the other way, holding his arms out. One hung lower, weighed down by the open, nearly empty bottle of spirits in his hand. “See?” he declared, heart pounding as he looked down the steep cliff below and knew there was no nano-net strung that would save him if he fell.

“Oh, yes,” Obi-Wan agreed, lifting his glass in a salute and pouring himself more of the brandy. Behind him the majestic house was dark, all of its lights and windows shattered out. Glass glittered across the side of the patio closest to the mansion. “Why don’t you come down from there and join me for some brandy?”

“Don’t wanna,” Anakin said, sticking his chin up and taking another long swig from the bottle, staggering back and being pushed forward again by Obi-Wan’s careful hand. The pout made him seem much younger than his sixteen years, and Obi-Wan grinned at the childishness of it. “I want to see the valley. Yeah. It’s pretty.”

“Do what you like, Anakin. What is our word?”

“She… resh...oy!” he declared proudly after a moment of careful thought, teetering on his feet and punctuating each syllable with a finger pointed at Obi-Wan from where his hand curled around the bottle. The liquor sloshed inside each time he raised and dropped his hand.

Obi-Wan studied his flushed face and happy smile with a casual one of his own even as he stealthily pushed Anakin back off the balcony to hop down onto the solid ground of the patio. “And what does ‘shereshoy’ mean?”

“It’s Mando’a. Means, uh, ‘Have fun and don’t die,’” Anakin nodded, finishing off the last of the alcohol and tossing the bottle aside to break and spill across the stones.

Obi-Wan laughed, a rich sound that echoed along the patio and through the warm orange of the last rays of sunlight canting down along the house. The shadows of evening would crawl up the side of the cliff soon enough, darkness that would reveal the bright yellow of his eyes, but for now they were simply a rich, warm hue, just as everything else was in the twilight, as they focused on Anakin. “Perhaps one of the simpler ways I’ve heard it translated, but yes. The more nuanced version I taught you is, ‘Live life to the fullest, and survive to see another day’. But I see you remember what I said.”

“I remember lots of stuff,” Anakin declared, coming to sprawl out on a cushion-stuffed couch across from Obi-Wan.

“Oh, do you? What else do you remember about ‘shereshoy’?”

“You learned it on Mandalore when you were on a mission there. You like Mandalore.”

“I do. Keep going.”

Encouraged by Obi-Wan’s tilt of his glass toward him, Anakin sank back into the cushions and gave a happy sigh at how comfortable they felt and how beautiful the sky was overhead with its pastel wash of soft hues. “It’s where your, ah... real name comes from. Yeah. The one you chose. Darth Vhetin.”

“Correct. And do you remember what ‘Vhetin’ means?”

“It’s… uh… ‘field’! From ‘can’, or ‘con’ or…”

“‘Cin’. ‘Cin vhetin’,” he said quietly, a pleased smile on his face as Anakin rolled over onto his side to look at him. “If you can remember what it means I’ll let you choose the next ship we steal.”

“No people on it,” Anakin frowned, a thread of conscious worry finding its way past the day of drinking and wild, carefree destruction of the entire interior of the house behind them. It was apparently a vacation house: no one had been home when they had spiraled down out of the sky earlier that day in their speeder, deciding to stay there for the night on a whim. “Don’t want you to fight people.”

“Yes, yes. We’ll take a parked one down in the city.” Obi-Wan kept his face pleasant but made a note that even drunk and after a month of running wild through the Outer Rim, Anakin was still unwilling to entertain violence if it could be avoided.

“Ok. So,” Anakin said, running a hand through his cropped haircut just beginning to grow out, lips pursed together in intense thought. “‘Cin vhetin.’ Uh, it means, field, no wait, ‘white field’, like snow. But it really means, ah… oh yeah! A fresh start. New beginning.”

“Excellent, little brother.”

“Do I get a fresh start, too? Like you?” He closed his eyes, suddenly tired.

“Of course, Anakin. That is why I offered you the chance to run away with me and get your mother.”

Anakin yawned, sleep stealing in. “You’re the best older brother ever.”

“Thank you, Anakin, but you know I only want what is best for you. You deserve the best. We deserve the best. We are superior to those who would try to stop us.”

He made a soft, pleased face at the praise. “Ok. As long as we get my mom, too. She deserves the best, too.”

Obi-Wan had lied so long it was easier to answer Anakin than it had been keeping him balanced on the balcony a moment ago. “Anakin, you know I had to reach out to my contacts to make sure she was still there and it takes time to do that without the Jedi hearing about it. No sense wasting most of our money on a trip to Tatooine to find out she isn’t there anymore and bring the Jedi down on us.”

“When will they get back to you?”

“Well...” Obi-Wan thought about stalling him further, wanting to take more time to chip away at his Jedi habits and Jedi way of thinking, but he could sense Anakin’s impatience humming through the Force, growing stronger every day.  _He loves her deeply. Such a sweet child._ “I was going to save this for tomorrow, but I have good news. She is still there.”  _I hope. No reason why she wouldn’t be._  

 _And if she’s not we’ll go find her._ “We’ll leave tomorrow for Tatooine. In the ship of your choice.”

Anakin beamed at him, the expression made slow and lazy by the liquor in his system, and then promptly fell asleep. Obi-Wan smiled, amused, before he downed the last of his own drink, chuckling and enjoying the first stars of the night glittering into view overhead.

 

* * *

 

As the ship plunged through the blue-white waves of hyperspace, nearing its destination, Qui-Gon sat back and sighed, running a final diagnostic on the ship’s landing systems and attempting to release his anxiety into the Force as his fingers moved over the keys and levers.

“We will find him,” his traveling companion said quietly to the control board as he sensed the tension in the air, mirroring Qui-Gon’s actions as needed from the copilot chair as they worked together to set the final commands for the ship’s flight plan.

“I hope so.” Qui-Gon glanced over at Maul and wondered, not for the first time, if he’d made the right choice in trusting the voice of the Living Force as he understood it. Through instinct, he had gone down after years away to see the captured Sith, after Obi-Wan had fled the Temple with young Anakin in tow. It had been instinct that had told him Maul could be trusted enough to do this.

Qui-Gon wondered if instinct was finally going to get him killed this time, no matter the precautions the Council had taken.

Maul sat next to him in the same plain, layered garb and brown robe a Jedi would wear, the Council agreeing it would draw too much attention to him to have him dress any differently than Qui-Gon on this odd, desperate expedition, and he sat with the same calm as any Knight, his Force presence a little rougher around the edges than most but well within the sphere of calm a Jedi strove for. It would take a strong wind or sharp turn for his outer robe to billow out and reveal the only difference between Maul and Qui-Gon’s ensemble, and the Council’s first requirement for Qui-Gon’s borrowing of the prisoner: where a lightsaber sat on Qui-Gon’s hip there was no weapon on Maul’s.

The only comment the Zabrak had made on this when the quartermaster and Qui-Gon had brought his clothing and boots to his cell was dry and under his breath, no true anger present because it hadn’t surprised him in the least.  _“What am I supposed to use? Harsh language?”_

A soft chime rang from inside the layers of Qui-Gon’s tunic and he pulled out a small device that resembled a com: a second precaution by the Temple that actually preceded the first by years.

All prisoners of Maul’s security level were injected with Order-proprietary nanobots: tiny, poison-filled vessels that required a signal twice a day to prevent them from releasing their toxic cargo into the blood. The jail level of the Temple broadcast this signal like clockwork at dawn and dusk, but taking a prisoner out into the field meant the signal would have to go with him.

Qui-Gon took note of how carefully Maul watched him take the device out and press his thumb over the little fingerprint reader at the end, making sure it blinked blue before tucking it back into his tunic.

Maul’s yellow eyes drifted up to find Qui-Gon staring hard at him, and nodded his head in apology. “You’ll have to forgive me. It’s rather strange to have someone else literally holding my life in his hand.”

“I won’t kill you. I forgave your attempt on my life years ago.”

“I thank you, Master Jinn. I was… a different person then. Not really a person at all, if I were being completely honest.”

“A weapon.”

“Yes.”

“Is that what Obi-Wan is going to make Anakin?”

“I don’t know. Toward the end of his visits to my cell, when I sensed him starting to turn, he…” Maul thought about this, leaning back and folding his hands to disappear into the sleeves of his robe, “... he didn’t seem bent on destruction as it were, or hatred, the usual paths to the dark. Selfishness was something I began to see more in him. A great hunger.”

“What do you mean?”

“He began to talk of what was owed to him, of how everyone had overlooked him.”

Qui-Gon frowned and reminded himself not to interrupt or try to defend his own actions that had played a part in this horrible chain of events: Maul was not saying anything that wasn’t true.  _I took on Anakin as my Padawan and left Obi-Wan largely on his own without warning and without stopping to think if he was really, truly ready to be on his own. I was so eager to teach Anakin._

_And now I may have lost them both._

At the crisp ping of an alarm, Qui-Gon readied his hands on the controls and the ship dropped out into the black swath of realspace, the large arc of a mottled, rust-colored world rising up ahead of them.

“Anakin is the Chosen One, they all say. Even I have heard that.” Maul glanced over at Qui-Gon as he took over the secondary guidance, the ship rumbling as it leapt into the orbital embrace of the planet’s gravity well. “If Obi-Wan is better than those who spurned him, he should have the Chosen One fighting with him. He is owed the best because he is the best. From all of our conversations, that is why I would guess he took Anakin along.”

 _‘All of our conversations’. Obi-Wan probably spent more time talking to you than me in the last few years_ , Qui-Gon thought with no small amount of guilt before he realized something was off in Maul’s answer. “You call him ‘Anakin’? Not ‘Skywalker’?” The black sea of space fell away as they angled in, yellows and oranges overtaking the sky.

“Obi-Wan brought him down once in awhile along with him as part of his studies, allegedly, but more to show him the dread monster, the Sith brought low. While Obi-Wan was writing up our conversation or his notes Anakin and I would talk, believe it or not, when he wanted to.”

“I never heard about this.”

Maul wisely said nothing in response to this, steering the conversation elsewhere as he corrected for some turbulence that rattled them both in their chairs while Qui-Gon brought the ship into alignment on one of the approved flight paths down. “That is why I offered to help bring him back.”

“I don’t follow.”

“I watched Anakin grow up, one short visit at a time. It was like watching stills stutter along from a holo. I hated him at first, found him annoying and far too clever for his own good. But as I changed, I started to realize why I put up with him, why I would pick up the threads of conversations he tried to start, and I finally understood… ”

Qui-Gon listened to the quiet tone of his voice, searching for mockery or insult but finding none. “Understood what?”

“He reminded me of myself.”

At the flare of anger in the Force from Qui-Gon he shook his head and watched as the lingering clouds of the upper atmosphere broke to reveal a vast, featureless desert below. “I do not say that to provoke you, Master Jinn. What I mean is that he reminded me of myself because he was young and powerful and it seemed like his whole life had been planned out for him by those above him. He had very little say in any of it. Once I understood that, several years into my captivity, I began to feel a certain, small… well... fondness for him, if you can believe it.”

“I will… attempt to.”

“Good. Because that is why I am here. Why I accepted your request for help.” Maul looked over at him, yellow eyes serious and glowing faintly in the light. “I have no desire to prove myself to the Council or to you. I do not expect or deserve freedom or forgiveness for my long list of sins. But while I have no objection to the Order raising Anakin, I will not stand by and see him taken and corrupted by an agent of the dark in the same way I was.”

Qui-Gon listened as he locked the ship on its final approach vector, unsure of which was more unnerving: sitting alone with the silent shadow who had almost killed him nine years earlier or hearing such eloquence from him.  _This is how he sounds with me: either incredibly penitent or telling me exactly what I want to hear. Are well-spoken words how he opened Obi-Wan’s heart to the dark?_

He sighted out across the pale colors of dunes and flatlands and hoped they were not too late. 

“So these conversations with Anakin… Is that why you said we should come back here to Tatooine and stake out his mother’s home?” he wondered, willing his focus back on the matter at hand.

“Yes. As Anakin grew older all he could talk about was his mother. Shmi Skywalker. They lived in Mos Espa.”

“I know. I met her when I met Anakin.”

“I once overheard Obi-Wan tell Anakin you didn’t take his mother because the Council wanted him and his mother separated to break their attachment. Is this true?” The desert whipped by below them, bleached and vast and empty, while a tumble of low silhouettes rose in the distance and Qui-Gon contemplated the question.

“No,” he finally, reluctantly said, this question clearly one he had turned over more than once in his mind. “I didn’t have the money at the time, and we Jedi can’t just kidnap people, or steal ‘property’, as local laws would have declared it. I had hoped to return to buy and free her later but the Council never gave me permission to do so. They said it would set a bad precedent for non-interference in local systems. Why only her? Why not all of them? It was heartbreaking to see Anakin’s face when I told him but I thought he understood that when he was older he could raise his own money and free her himself.”

“Hmm.” Maul sat back. “May I give some advice, Master Jinn?”

“Go on.”

“As a former Sith, I believe Obi-Wan has used and will continue to use the Council’s treatment of Anakin’s mother to his advantage. If you wish to take away that advantage, you will need to give Anakin a better answer than the one you gave me when next you have the chance.”

“As hard as it is to hear, it is the truth. What other answer should I give?”

“There is an old Sith saying I think Obi-Wan would agree with here: ‘Kanl’a irrhig edan.’ It means, “Sometimes the truth is the best weapon of all.’”

Qui-Gon frowned intently out at the approaching city. “Well, I have been given permission and enough credits to free her. The Council does understand it may not have been their best decision.”

“Then we should free her as soon as we find her.”

 

* * *

 

The desert air hung hot and still in the streets of Mos Espa, as sullen as the twin suns that dragged themselves across the barren blue of the noonday sky.

Obi-Wan and Anakin strode down the middle of one wide alley, Anakin leading the way with as measured a pace as he could manage given his exuberance. He and Obi-Wan were in the lightest hooded cloaks and clothing the vacation home closets had had to offer, grey and tan ghosts in rich silk-linens drifting down the street, and he had to smile to himself at the thought of his mother seeing him in such subtle, expensive garments.

The exquisite drape and cut of them was not lost on some of the shadier inhabitants of this part of town, and Obi-Wan smirked to himself at the thought of the three shadows who had fallen in behind them a few turns back.  _Let them try. It’ll give Anakin something to cut his teeth on other than Temple practice droids._

“We’re almost there,” Anakin smiled back at him, so caught up in imagining his mother’s surprised face he was completely unaware of the men trailing him. Obi-Wan couldn’t fault him for his inattention: his anticipation, sweet and bright, was intoxicating as it shone forth from him in the Force, and Obi-Wan idly wondered if he had ever experienced any emotion as clearly and purely as Anakin seemed to experience them all.

There was no harm in the blinding light of Anakin’s aurora until they rounded a corner and found themselves face-to-face with the looming, distinctive silhouettes of hooded Jedi that Obi-Wan hadn’t been able to sense through Anakin’s joy and excitement.

Two of them, waiting in the middle of the empty alley as if they’d been there all day, one of them tall enough there was only one man it could be.

“Qui-Gon,” Obi-Wan sneered, dropping back and drawing his saber to mar the air with hissing blue. Anakin froze, his hand going to his saber on instinct but not pulling it free from his belt. Somewhere behind them the three men ran away, their footfalls echoing across the rough adobe walls of the buildings that crowded in close around them.

“Anakin,” their former master said, pulling his hood down and fixing Anakin with his intense gaze as the second Jedi stood silently, lost in the shadows of his own cowl. “I am here to save you. And your mother.”

Flushed with guilt and shame, ready to argue with them about how he didn’t need saving, Anakin’s protest died on his lips when he heard the second part. “What?”

Obi-Wan looked at the second Jedi, something familiar about him even through the haze of Anakin’s light, and as he narrowed his eyes the answer slid through the Force to him in a wave of red and black and regrets.

He laughed in a fine, cruel twist of his lips as he pointed his saber accusingly and turned to Anakin. “He wishes to save your mother, hmm? Look who he brought to do so!”

Qui-Gon said nothing, glaring at Obi-Wan as the man next to him brought up gloved hands and revealed a solemn face Anakin had only ever seen through the glimmer of a security nanoscreen. He felt his heart stop even as his hand moved faster than it ever had, whipping his saber out and on and into a defensive slant across his chest. “What in the third hell is this? You set him loose?”

“He knew you’d come here, Anakin, because you love your mother. He knew it was a mistake we did not free her. But we will, as soon as you help us find her home. It’s been more difficult than we thought it would be to locate her.” Qui-Gon resisted the urge to draw his own weapon and held out his hand. “You shine so brightly through our bond, Anakin, it was easy to sense you once you landed. I can see you are still a child of the Light. Come with me, please, and let’s go find her together. You have done nothing that cannot be forgiven.”

“Yes, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said encouragingly from behind his saber, sarcasm as dry as the breeze that rustled their cloaks and the Jedi’s robes. “Hurry back to the Temple that only wants to hobble you. It’s a trick, you know. They have no interest in strengthening your dreaded ‘attachments’.”

Anakin looked back and forth between them, torn, and Obi-Wan felt the tenuous hold he had on him slipping. Growling, he leapt toward Qui-Gon and then Maul, testing their resolve to fight in a vicious whirl of his saber.

Qui-Gon lit his blade and shoved him away in a single, solid motion, but Maul only danced back from the slash, fists clenched at his side.  _No weapon. They didn’t give him a weapon!_ Obi-Wan resisted the urge to laugh again and instead sent his thoughts to Anakin in a rush of smug satisfaction.  _Go. Find your mother and take her back to our ship. We will truly set her free._

 _What about them?_ Anakin asked, stunned at Obi-Wan’s bravery in the face of superior numbers.

 _I’ll handle them and meet you at the ship. Go!_  

Anakin took off in a run back the way they’d come, and Obi-Wan’s smile grew at how easily the boy obeyed the twin call of adrenaline and authority.

“Anakin!” Qui-Gon called, stepping forward in alarm but blocked by Obi-Wan’s deep bow and wide sweep of his saber.

“Sorry, Qui-Gon, it seems you frightened the poor boy, dragging that monster out into the light like that.” He lifted his chin, fixing Maul’s unreadable yellow eyes with his own the same shade. “So tell me, do you like pretending to be a Jedi?”

“Do you like pretending to be a Sith?” he answered, voice impossibly cold in the baking desert air.

Obi-Wan snorted and took a few steps back, his boots scuffing across the sandy duracrete of the road.

He glanced at Qui-Gon, reading the hesitation in his broad shoulders and the faint dip of his blade as he returned Obi-Wan’s gaze with his own pained one.  _And you, you weak old fool. You still aren’t willing to kill me. Pathetic._

Still looking at Qui-Gon, he dove at Maul, slashing up and down at him in a strike so quick it was hard to follow in the harsh light of the suns overhead. But the tip of his blade only seared through the edges of Maul’s robes: the Zabrak had thrown himself back with the aid of the Force, leaping to the top of a nearby tiled roof.

Undeterred, Obi-Wan used his momentum to swing around at Qui-Gon, their blades smashing together in an explosion of white sparks before he slid past him to dance away and then fall in again in a relentless set of strikes against him.

Qui-Gon fought back with strong, confident strokes, repelling each of his attacks and attempting to make his own hits, but he lacked the heart to make them fatal and missed chance after chance to kill in his attempts to wound as the fight wore on. Maul darted around the edges of their attacks, trying to land punches and kicks but repelled every time by Obi-Wan’s saber until he finally retreated to the end of the alley and out of their reach, helpless as he watched the duel grind on.

No one came to interfere, and no one would in a rough section of the city like this. It was just the two of them, locked in battle, the Force pounding in harsh waves around them as the former teacher and the former student slashed and dodged in a blinding dance of light.

“Give up, Obi-Wan!” Qui-Gon shouted at last, his voice low bass and agony. “Give up and you will be treated fairly!” he begged, bladework faltering for a moment as he remembered them training together, Obi-Wan’s hair just put into a Padawan braid. “I swear it as your Master!”

“‘Master’?! You threw me away!” he spat, using Qui-Gon’s momentary weakness to brutally throw him off his feet with a violent, rage-driven explosion of the Force that knocked him across the alley.

Qui-Gon slammed into a pebbled wall with a loud crack and billow of dust as the adobe crumbled under his body from the impact and he slid bonelessly to the ground. Groaning, he tried to stand but was too dazed to do so and collapsed back to his knees, sprawled with his back against the building and dust in his dark hair.

His saber dropped and rolled away, and Obi-Wan gave a low, approving snarl and charged, blade up for a killing strike.

Almost there, out of the corner of his eye Obi-Wan noticed Qui-Gon’s saber was still rolling and then skittering along the ground as if an unseen wind had picked it up somehow.

And then Maul was sliding in front of him, the green of Qui-Gon’s blade lifted high, thrusting Obi-Wan’s attack wide and circling the green line of light back around in an attempt to stab him through the side.

Obi-Wan dove and rolled out of harm’s way, the streak of jade missing his face by a hand’s width and the hard surface of the road biting into his shoulder.

Maul came after him, suffering from none of the hesitation that had held Qui-Gon back, and it took Obi-Wan more effort than he was comfortable admitting fending him off as he regained his feet. “Not very Jedi-like, are you?” he hissed, swinging a powerful pair of kicks at Maul’s face to force him back out of reach.

“Give us Skywalker!”

 _Master! I found her! We’re going back to the ship now!_ Anakin’s thrilled voice echoed through Obi-Wan’s mind, bringing another grin. 

“Never. Enjoy being their lap dog, Maul. They’ll still kill you in the end.” Throwing a hand up as he whirled to run off into a side alley, Obi-Wan let out another wave of the Force over Qui-Gon’s head and clenched his hand into a fist to yank it back, pulling heavy tiles from the roof above to send them crashing down.

Maul didn’t watch Obi-Wan go, instinct spinning him around to shoot his hands out and the Force toward Qui-Gon as soon as he realized what Obi-Wan was doing. Grunting from the effort, he wrapped the Force around Qui-Gon and dragged the limp Jedi to safety just before the tiles landed in a deafening crash, a deadly rain splintering and skittering across the duracrete.

Crumpled at Maul's feet, Qui-Gon tried to sit up and waved him away as Maul powered down the saber and knelt to check his injuries, the master's voice weak and muddled. “Take it. Go!”

Maul nodded and slapped the weapon to the side of his belt, bolting off after Obi-Wan.

 

* * *

 

Inside their ship, Anakin was hurriedly speeding through the take-off routine, hands flying over the control board and the rows of buttons and switches overhead. It was so hard to focus on it when all he wanted to do was turn to the woman behind him and hug her a dozen more times, to bask in that familiar, comforting glow that was the first spark of love in the Force he’d ever known.

But he managed to, working through the checks and warm-ups and system initializations that set the ship humming as he reached out to Obi-Wan.  _Where are you? We’re three minutes from launch capacity on the engines._

_Good work, little brother. I’m losing an ugly shadow that is trying to follow me back. I should be there in less than five._

Anakin frowned out the window that ran blunt and wide around the front of the ship, trying to see out into the maze of buildings that started abruptly at the end of the fenced off landing field edging this side of town. But there was only the lazy drift of speeders and cargo vehicles sending dust up into the air here and there, no bright lines of color arcing through the air.

“Ani?” his mother asked from behind him, her hand sliding over his shoulder and squeezing in quiet concern. “You didn’t pay for me like you said you did, did you?”

Looking up at her, momentarily afraid as he wondered if she disapproved, he thought of Obi-Wan’s motto and how much further it had gotten him than the Jedi Code ever had and felt his resolve harden. “No. And I don’t have to, Mom. I’m the Chosen One,” he declared, standing up and putting his hands on her shoulders. “It’s my right to do what I want to do. What I should do.”

She blinked at him, surprised, and touched his face, stroking his cheek with her thumb as she tried to understand what he was saying. “Ani, in your letters you always talked about serving others. I am so, so happy to see you it almost hurts, but what is all of this? What are you doing?”

“He is embracing his destiny, Madam Skywalker,” Obi-Wan cut in, stalking up the ramp with a last glance behind him. “Fire up the engines, Anakin, and get us out of here.”

Shmi sat down in one of the two chairs behind the pilot and copilot seats and strapped in, watching Obi-Wan with an unreadable expression as he sat down in the copilot chair and took long, calming breaths after what had apparently been a long run.

As Anakin buckled himself in and guided the ship skyward, everything lurching when it arched up into the unforgiving blue, Obi-Wan turned his seat toward her and bowed from it, a welcoming smile on his face. “A pleasure to meet you. My young charge has told me so much about you.”

“You are Obi-Wan Kenobi? I have heard many things about you as well,” she said carefully, gaze darting back to Anakin and worry clear and strong in the Force. 

_Like mother, like child, it would seem, when it comes to emotions. But outwardly she hides hers much better._

“Please do not be alarmed, my dear,” Obi-Wan reassured her as Anakin worked quietly, feeding in the final coordinates they’d planned on before coming to Tatooine. “This is something long overdue that Anakin has dreamed about for years. As I’m sure you have as well.”

She smiled and nodded, her anxiety not budging from her aura. “Every day.”

“Then please do not trouble yourself with the logistics of how it came to be.”

“What part of Anakin’s training is this? I thought he wasn’t allowed to go on missions without his master.”

“Obi-Wan is my master now, Mom,” Anakin cheerfully offered over his shoulder, relief flowing through him as he hit the final switches to send them back into hyperspace and Tatooine fell away in a streak of blue.

Obi-Wan had to hand it to her: at this news she barely raised an eyebrow, but the disapproval was there all the same beneath the polite expression of interest she gave Obi-Wan before looking back to Anakin.

“Anakin is gifted, as you know, Madam Skywalker. I am but his humble guide as he discovers all aspects of the Force, not just the ones he has previously studied.”

“I see. Well, I am grateful to you.”

“It is my honor to serve him.” Obi-Wan bowed again from his seat and gave her his most charming smile, reminding himself that there was no way she could know what the color of his eyes denoted.

“May I go rest for a bit? I’m afraid today has been a bit much for me,” she asked after a moment, her voice a quiet lilt.

“Of course, Mom! Obi-Wan, will you watch the controls? I’ll show her her room!”

“Yes, little brother,” Obi-Wan nodded, watching the two disappear into the back section of the ship amid Anakin’s excited explanation of where she would be sleeping: the master suite, a set of rooms larger than anywhere they’d ever lived.

Anakin left her there to shower and relax, beaming from the kiss she gave him on his cheek as he walked back to the front of the ship.

“I can’t believe she’s here,” he sighed, sinking down into the pilot chair. “I hope she likes her room.”

“I think she’ll find it quite comfortable.” The master suite was a combination bedroom and study, featuring a soft, massive bed, an on-suite refresher and high-end water-spray shower, and a library of entertainment media all along the walls of the study.

Obi-Wan had figured these things would be more than enough distraction for a woman just freed from slavery, but he was proven wrong when less than half an hour later the communications panel between them lit up in a row of green and blue lights.

Anakin frowned at it from his seat, puzzled. “What is that?”

“A channel opening for an outgoing comm,” Obi-Wan said slowly, not believing what he was seeing. They both jumped up at the same time and hurried back to Shmi’s room, where they found her sitting at the study’s work desk, pressing buttons on a holo receiver she had to have found in one of its little drawers.

When the door opened, she looked up in wide-eyed amazement, immediately holding the device out to Anakin. “Is this for the shower? I’m having such a hard time figuring these things out!”

Breaking into a loving, affectionate laugh, Anakin shook his head and took it, turning it off. “No, Mom. That’s one of the handheld comms to send messages out. Come on, I’ll show you which buttons to push, ok?”

“Oh thank you, Ani,” she said, shrugging and looking at Obi-Wan with an apologetic bow. “Sorry for causing you trouble.”

“Oh, no apologies needed, my dear,” he smiled back, his eyes narrowing after she’d walked past, arm in arm with Anakin, not liking at all how this little rescue was going.

Darth Vhetin had survived battles against clone squads and Jedi. He’d just survived a fight with his former master and a fellow Sith.

Now he had to wonder if he would survive Shmi Skywalker.


End file.
